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Houston to pastors: Forget your sermons, now we want your speeches

Five Christian pastors will no longer have to turn their sermons over to attorneys for the city of Houston. Instead, they will be forced to turn over their speeches related to the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO), Todd Starnes of Fox News reports.

I don’t mean to point out the obvious here – but what do those attorneys think a sermon is? It’s a speech.

According to an amended motion filed Friday in Harris County, Texas court, the city’s attorneys will no longer demand sermons related to homosexuals, gender identity, or Mayor Annise Parker – Houston’s first openly lesbian mayor.

The amended subpoenas do require the pastors to turn over “all speeches or presentations related to HERO” – along with 17 different categories of information.

The Alliance Defending Freedom is a religious liberty law firm that is representing the pastors. Attorney Erik Stanley tells me the amended subpoenas don’t solve anything.

“The city of Houston still doesn’t get it,” he said. “The subpoenas still ask for information that encompasses speeches made by the pastors and private communications with their church members.”